Harlan Kirgan
The fall-summer LSUE commencement with 157 graduates was the largest in its history.
The graduates on Saturday were given a farewell address from outgoing LSU President F. King Alexander, who announced recently he is leaving LSU to lead the University of Oregon.
As the LSU football team enters the race for a national championship, Alexander reminded the graduates of LSUE’s history of national championships in baseball and softball.
But Alexander focused on academics and asked the first generation graduates to stand.
“This is the heart and soul of the Land Grant mission,” he said of LSUE’s graduates.
The Land Grant universities were created in 1862 between the battles of Shilow and Gettysburg as the Army of Virginia threatened Washington, D.C., he said.
The Land Grant universities were created “to serve the industrial classes,” he said. “That means to serve a population that did not have access to higher education, a population that could not get into the ivy league institutions.”
LSUE exhibits the goal of the Land Grant mission, he said.
Alexander said the class is the largest in LSUE’s winter commencement and includes the most females graduates.
Going back the national championship, Alexander said, “This degree they take away today, when you leave this building, is a national championship that will be with you and your family a lifetime.”
Alexander said the degree represents an inter-generational impact.
Commencement speaker Don Reber, commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and retired businessman, also addressed the graduates’ future.
“I am here today to congratulate you, and talk to you about your futures. I say futures because each and every one of you have a different future in store for you that you cannot imagine,” Reber said.
Reber’s address touched on his service in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War to a business career working at Sears, Home Depot, Mastercraft, and Coastal Culvert and Supply in Eunice.
“I have never waited for someone to give me direction. I strived to learn all that I could in order to stay ahead,” he said.
Reber spotted personal computers becoming a hot sales item at Sears and realized they were the future.
“I watched people who purchased them playing games and I realized that if I learned how to use this new machine to help me with my work, I would get a jump on others while they played Pong and solitary,’ he said.
Along the way he learned how to paint and has sold his works all over the world, he said. He became a pilot.
Reber has served as chairman of the Eunice Economic Development Committee, served on the board of the Chamber of Commerce, and is president of the LSUE Board of Advisors.
“My future now is to donate my time and my experience to help this University, my community, St. Landry parish and the Veterans of Foreign Wars in any way I can.
“When I was your age, I could not have imagined what the future had in store for me. I say unto you, your education has just begun, don’t stop learning. Don’t be afraid of new challenges. Don’t wait for others. Create your own future,” he said.